A quick and accessible read, the book will be published by MIT Press in October. Its thesis is that while AI may be of epochal significance, human intelligence is of a different order than even the most powerful calculative ability enabled by new computational capacities.

Smith calls AI’s ability “reckoning,” and argues that it does not lead to full human “judgment,” which he describes as dispassionate, deliberative thought grounded in ethical commitment and responsible action.

Taking judgment as the ultimate goal of intelligence, Smith examines the history of AI from its first-wave origins (“good old-fashioned AI,” or GOFAI) to such celebrated second-wave approaches as machine learning, paying particular attention to recent advances that have led to excitement, anxiety, and the current ongoing debate.